A nano manganese dioxide (MnO₂) was electrodeposited galvanostatically onto a carbon fiber (CF) surface using the simple method of anodic electrodeposition. The composite electrode was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Very few studies investigated the efficiency of this electrode for heavy metals removal, especially chromium. The electrosorption properties of the nano MnO₂/CF electrode were examined by removing Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solutions. NaCl concentration, pH, and cell voltage were studied and optimized using the Box-Behnken design (BDD) to investigate their effects and interactions on the electrosorption process. The results showed that the

This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From

This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From

Striae distensae SD or stretch mark are frequent skin lesion that cause considerable aesthetic concern. The 1064nm long pulsed Nd:YAG Laser has been used to promote an increase in dermal collagen and is known to be a Laser that has a high affinity to vascular chromphores. Also by using fractional CO₂ Laser 10600nm as an effective modality in treatment of striae distensae SD. It works to stimulate fibroblast and enhance Collagen formation, which is important for newly generated skin tissue.

Objectives: This study aims to verify the efficacy of long pulsed Nd: YAG Laser (1064nm) in the treatment of immature striae distensae (SD) and the efficacy of C0₂ fractional Laser (10600nm) in treatment o

The research aims to identify the effect of teaching according to the augmented reality on the technique of the visual thinking skills among scientific fifth-grade students in a biology course. In order to achieve the goal of the research, the researcher adopted the experimental approach with the partial set of the two equal groups with the dimensional test of visual thinking skills, The research population represented all the scientific students of the fifth grade for morning government schools affiliated to the General Directorate of Education of Baghdad / Karkh II, alshakerin preparatory for boys was chosen intentionally, in which two groups were chosen for this study, one group is chosen randomly as the control group via lottery, whe

The research emphasizes importance of preliminary drawings in design of any product. Therefore, using of simulation as tools for visual thinking in developing drawing and design skills. So that practice of drawing by hand, considering shape of ideas in first stage of visualizations, and practice of its techniques and continuous training.
Hence, the research problem arose with the role of simulation method for developing preliminary sketches in the sample of students of the Product Design Department at the College of Design and Art, PNU, as it is important tool for visual thinking that helps the designer in designing and producing innovative artistic works.
Therefore, the research axes, a number of findings and recommendations were

BP algorithm is the most widely used supervised training algorithms for multi-layered feedforward neural net works. However, BP takes long time to converge and quite sensitive to the initial weights of a network. In this paper, a modified cuckoo search algorithm is used to get the optimal set of initial weights that will be used by BP algorithm. And changing the value of BP learning rate to improve the error convergence. The performance of the proposed hybrid algorithm is compared with the stan dard BP using simple data sets. The simulation result show that the proposed algorithm has improved the BP training in terms of quick convergence of the solution depending on the slope of the error graph.

Abstract

  Bivariate time series modeling and forecasting have become a promising field of applied studies in recent times. For this purpose, the Linear Autoregressive Moving Average with exogenous variable ARMAX model is the most widely used technique over the past few years in modeling and forecasting this type of data. The most important assumptions of this model are linearity and homogenous for random error variance of the appropriate model. In practice, these two assumptions are often violated, so the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH) and (GARCH) with exogenous varia